The word huaca (also waka) is a quechua word that refers to an ancient site or sacred place. To huaquear is 'to loot'...huaqueando - looting. This site is dedicated to providing a graphic image of destruction of archaeological sites caused by looting.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Status of Acaray...

Once untouched areas of Acaray are now heavily damaged by looters. The top photo shows recent looter's holes in what appears to be midden (ancient trash, in other words). The pot in the photo was left behind, which indicates that items worth selling were indeed sacked and stolen.The second photo, a detail of the abandoned pot, tells us why it was left behind. The small hole, the entry wound, was created by a barreta, a tool used to probe for voids in the ground. The looters punctured the vessel when probing the ground to look for a place to dig. You can see the exit wound, the larger section of the pot at its base that was blasted out by the barreta. Looters do not value these items. Those who buy looted items do not value these items. Looters, and those who traffic in antiquities, are committing not only crimes, but acts of violence. Photos by Margaret Brown Vega, 2009.

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Looting/Huaqueando

You will find photographs of archaeological looting, primarily from coastal desert sites in Peru. Because of the dry conditions, many things preserve well on the Peruvian coast. Unfortunately, looting and other forms of site destruction have thrashed large areas of the coast. The images here are intended to show, very graphically, what looters do to the sites, and to the remains of ancient peoples who once lived in these places.M. Brown Vega